The Mountaintop

by Katori Hall

Overview

The Mountaintop is published here as a Methuen Drama Student Edition, featuring notes and commentary by Harvey Young, Dean of the College of Fine Arts, Boston University, USA. The introduction offers a discussion of key themes including race, identity, politics, magical realism, one-act plays, historical figures and martyrs.

The night before his assassination, Martin Luther King, Jr. retires to room 306 in the now-famous Lorraine Motel after giving an acclaimed speech to a massive church congregation. When a mysterious young maid visits him to deliver a cup of coffee, King is forced to confront his past and the future of his people.

Portraying rhetoric, hope and ideals of social change, The Mountaintop also explores being human in the face of inevitable death. The play is a dramatic feat of daring originality, historical narration and triumphant compassion.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781350187979
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Publishing
Publication date:	02/22/2024
Series:	Student Editions
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	241,768
File size:	205 KB

About the Author

Katori Hall is from Memphis, Tennessee. Her play The Mountaintop was first produced to great acclaim at Theatre503, London, in June 2009, and received a transfer to the Trafalgar Studios, London, the following month. It won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2010, and opened in Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, New York City, in October 2011. Other plays include Hurt Village, Hoodoo Love, Remembrance, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning, WHADDABLOODCLOT!!!, The Hope Well and Pussy Valley. Her numerous awards include the 2007 Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, a 2006 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting and Screenwriting, a residency at the Royal Court Theatre in 2006, and the 2005 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting award.

Harvey Young is Dean of the College of Fine Arts and Professor of English and Theatre at Boston University, US. He has been published in academic journals, newspapers and magazines, and is the author of ten books.
Katori Hall is from Memphis, Tennessee. Her play The Mountaintop was first produced to great acclaim at Theatre503, London, in June 2009, and received a transfer to the Trafalgar Studios, London, the following month. It won the Olivier Award for Best New Play in 2010, and opened in Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, New York City, in October 2011. Her other plays include Hurt Village (Classical Theatre of Harlem Future Classics Reading Series, BRIC Studio, 2007), Hoodoo Love (Cherry Lane Theatre, New York, 2007), Remembrance (Women's Project/World Financial Center site-specific work, 2007), Saturday Night/Sunday Morning (Classical Theatre of Harlem Future Classics Reading Series, The Schomburg Centre, New York, 2008), WHADDABLOODCLOT!!!, The Hope Well and Pussy Valley. Her numerous awards include the 2007 Fellowship of Southern Writers Bryan Family Award in Drama, a 2006 New York Foundation of the Arts Fellowship in Playwriting and Screenwriting, a residency at the Royal Court Theatre in 2006, and the 2005 Lorraine Hansberry Playwriting award.

Table of Contents

Introduction
- Civil Rights Movement
- Martin, not Michael
- Lorraine Motel
- Theatre and Human Rights
- Imagining History
- Staging the Mountain
The Mountaintop: Playtext
Notes

Editorial Reviews

Inventive and startlingly moving” —The Times

“Sometimes a play comes out of the blue and knocks everyone for six . . . A beautiful and startling piece, beginning naturalistically before shifting gear into something magical, spiritual and touching . . . A play that keeps you marveling to the end.” —Telegraph

“Wondrous, hilarious and heartbreaking” —Independent

“This is a play that honours greatness, while recognising humanity.” —Sam Marlowe, THE TIMES

“Hall's play is as funny as it is gut-wrenchingly sad.” —Matt Breen, Time Out London

“. . .in it's evocation of an unjust, fractured America, [Hall's play] has few equals.” —Fergus Morgan, THE STAGE

From the Publisher

Wondrous, hilarious and heartbreaking

Independent

Sometimes a play comes out of the blue and knocks everyone for six . . . A beautiful and startling piece, beginning naturalistically before shifting gear into something magical, spiritual and touching . . . A play that keeps you marveling to the end.

Telegraph

Inventive and startlingly moving

The Times

Inventive and startlingly moving.

The Times (of London)

Remarkable.

The Guardian

I’ve been to the mountaintop,” Martin Luther King, Jr., proclaimed in his final speech in Memphis on April 3, 1968. The next day he was assassinated. What took place in the wee hours in-between is the grist for this tough, mesmerizing, and lyrical one-act play featuring two rising stars in American stage and film—Larry Powell and Aja Naomi King. As the mysterious motel maid who appears at Reverend King’s motel door, Aja Naomi King is a force of nature—whispering, cajoling, and calling like a gospel singer to lead the Reverend on a search for his very core as a human being, evoking his pride, humor, and doubts in the process. It’s a transcending, emotional experience for the listener. Contemporary American theater at its best. B.P. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2017 Audies Finalist © AudioFile 2017, Portland, Maine

JANUARY 2017 - AudioFile